Consequences
by Darkover
Summary: Giles has a decision to make.


7

Title: Consequences

Author: Darkover, a.k.a. TheQueenly1

Rating: PG-13. This may be excessive, but there is some violence, and character deaths. Warning: Some angst.

Summary: Giles has a decision to make.

Spoilers: Up to and including "Graduation," Parts One and Two, although it is AU in one major respect before that. There are some vague references to events of later seasons.

Disclaimer: As far as I know, all the characters of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" are owned and were created by Joss Whedon. I do not own them, and would have done some things on that program far differently if I had. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; please do not sue.

Author's Note: Brackets indicate unvoiced thoughts. Asterisks, in this story, indicate the passage of time.

Feedback: Would be greatly appreciated! Contact me at 

Rupert Giles stared down at the objects in the small leather box before him. He made no move either to pick them up or to put them away; he seemed mesmerized by them, like a bird in front of a snake.

"What's that?" his wife asked, coming up behind him to peer over his shoulder. "Some kind of drug? Where did you get this?"

Giles roused himself, glancing up at her as she put her hand on his shoulder. "They were sent to me by theWatcher's Council. These are to be used as part of Buffy's Cruciamentum. That is a test administered to every Slayer, if and when she reaches her eighteenth birthday. I—I am to give her a series of injections, without her knowledge, that will temporarily deprive her of her Slayer strength." He fell silent.

His wife gave him a puzzled look. "Then what?"

"Then she—she is locked in a chamber with a vampire, and must defeat him." Or die. Giles had resumed staring down at the loaded syringes, looking like a man who had received a death sentence.

His wife was aghast. "What? Rupert, how is Buffy to defeat a vampire without the use of her strength?"

"It can be done." Theoretically.

"Rupert, that's insane! What is the point of handicapping her like that?" His wife withdrew her touch, dark eyes flashing. "I think it's crazy, and just plain wrong. How can you even think of doing such a thing to Buffy?"

"It is required," he said simply. "All Slayers are tested this way, if they reach their eighteenth birthdays. The Council has ordered me to do it."

"Then tell them no! Rupert, I wouldn't have believed you were capable of such a thing."

He turned toward his wife, taking her hand in his own, gazing earnestly up into her eyes. "Do you think I want to? Jenny, I have no choice. Refusal to administer the Cruciamentum is grounds for immediate dismissal. I would be instantly removed as Buffy's Watcher, and doubtless be on a plane to Britain by tomorrow, at the latest."

"They can't do that," she protested. "You're married to an American citizen."

"I'm not sure that would matter," he said quietly. At her look of disbelief, he amplified; "Jenny, love, you don't understand. The Watchers' Council is an organization that has existed for millennia. They have contacts everywhere, and they are accustomed to getting their own way."

"Are you saying there isn't anything you can do?"

"I could resign," he said simply. "It is rare to the point of being almost unknown for the Watcher to the Slayer to resign from his responsibility, but I suppose that I could do it."

"Well, then—"

He looked up at her again. "You must understand what that would entail, Jenny. I would never work again. Not as a librarian, not as a museum curator, not as a university instructor, nor any kind of a teacher. I would be fortunate to get a job at the Doublemeat Palace. The Council employs everything from lawyers to magick-users. They would find some way to ruin me."

"Well, then," she said, floundering a little, "can't you just quit? Completely, I mean. I know how important being a Watcher is to you, Rupert, but I turned my back on my people, the Kalderash, for your sake—"

He squeezed her hand gently. "I know, Jenny, and I appreciate what that cost you. But one doesn't just resign from the Council of Watchers."

"Rupert, what are you saying?" she demanded.

"That—well, I don't want to sound melodramatic, but if I refused to administer the Cruciamentum, and then refused to have anything to do with the Council at all, then they might decide to remove me permanently."

Jenny's dark eyes widened, and her hands clutched at his convulsively. "Are you saying they would kill you?"

He looked very tired suddenly. "They might. I'm just saying that we couldn't rule out the possibility."

She looked back down at the syringes. "You say that Buffy can defeat a vampire, even without her strength?"

"It can be done," Giles repeated.

"Well, then..." she freed her hands from his and straightened, running one hand carefully over her pregnant belly. "Much as I like Buffy, Rupert, and I know how much you love her, you have to think of your family first! Do what you have to do."

"Jenny—" her husband began, still deeply troubled.

"Rupert," she said urgently, "if you won't do it for me, do it for the baby. Our child deserves a father. Buffy is strong and smart. She can pass this test."

Giles said nothing, but after a moment, he nodded silently and picked up the box with the syringes.

Months later, Rupert and Jenny Giles sat on the stage at Sunnydale High School, their infant daughter sleeping in a carryall between them. Their child had been named Elizabeth, after Rupert's former Slayer. It had done nothing to assuage his guilt over Buffy's death during her Cruciamentum, and frankly, Jenny herself often felt the pang of guilt over the way she had urged her husband to carry out the test, although she still did not see how he could have done anything else. As a married man, surely he had to put the welfare of his pregnant wife over that of even his Slayer. Or so Jenny told herself on dark nights.

She cast a worried glance at her husband, who seemed to have aged ten years since Buffy's death just a few months ago. He was a good Watcher to Faith, the girl who had come to town and replaced Buffy, or at least as good a Watcher as Faith would allow him to be. The girl seemed to want a father figure, but there was something too wild and dark about her; she would not let anyone get close, and she seemed jealous of the fact that Rupert gave his primary loyalty to his wife and their baby. Her presence at the graduation ceremony today was surprising, to say the least, for in spite of all Rupert's efforts to get her to resume her schooling, Faith had never shown any interest in anything other than Slaying. Yet there she was, right in the front row. If Jenny had not known better, she would have said the girl was smirking.

Neither Jenny nor Giles had paid much attention to the guest speaker, even if he was Sunnydale's Mayor; but he certainly caught their attention when he began to change.

People screamed, jumped up, and began to trample each other in an effort to get away. The giant snake-demon that had once been the Mayor leaned over and, in a matter of seconds, bit the heads off both Willow and Oz. Jenny screamed and grabbed for her baby as Rupert jumped to his feet. Before he could act, Faith, grinning savagely, leaped onto the stage and cut him down as if he were a vampire. Sobbing and clutching her baby to her, Jenny tried to get away, but Faith intercepted her, running her through with the sword the rogue Slayer had just used to kill Rupert.

Jenny's last thought just before she died was; Faith betrayed us. Just as we betrayed Buffy. Oh, Rupert, I'm so sorry...I should have understood that the Slayer must come first....

Two figures watched what was happening—yet not happening. "This is what would have transpired had not Jenny Calendar died at the hands of Angelus?" one said to the other.

Another of the beings known as The Powers That Be indicated assent to the query of the first one. "Death is not always the greatest evil, even though most mortals believe it to be so. There are an infinite number of universes, and in at least one universe, this is what happened. But it did not happen in ours, thank the Creator."

The first Power hesitated, and the other sensed it. "You have more questions?" the second asked calmly.

"But still...I understand that sometimes it is necessary to permit a terrible thing to happen, in order to prevent even more terrible things from happening. But even with poor Jenny Calendar's murder, more terrible things happened...."

"The Slayer and her Watcher are meant to be together."

"Quite so. But they are not, are they? The Slayer's Watcher left her."

"For a time. Remember what I said about alternate universes? In this one, some monks did something unnatural, creating something that should never have been created, although their motives were good. This led to other choices, other situations. The Slayer and the Watcher have been parted, but only for a time..." The beings began to fade, but before they faded out completely, one said to the other;

"And in time, they shall find their way back to each other."


End file.
